Creative industries in Indonesia: a socio-spatial exploration of three kampongs in Bandung

Abstract

Several studies on creative industries (CIs) have investigated the impact of CIs on the social and economic development of cities, regions or countries in the Global South. In Indonesia, past research has focussed on CIs’ impact on national economic development and their network processes and effects. Few studies have examined the role of creative kampongs at a local scale, especially the multi-dimensional aspects of the socio-spatial processes of kampongs hosting CIs. Our contribution seeks to answer the question: how has the spatiality of the kampongs that host CIs in Bandung changed since the start of the 2009 Creative Economy national policy? Focussing on the city-region as the central concept, we apply socio-spatial analytics to explore the social and spatial dimensions of this phenomenon as well as its policy arrangements. In terms of city-region conformation process, each of the three cases selected reveal the presence of different spatial strategies and social dynamics patterns, emerging from a variety of factors. The different origins of the kampongs, the impact of their creative economy identities, and the role of the communities and community-related actors in their development play core roles in their development.

Keywords:

• Creative industries
• socio-spatial analytics
• spatiality
• kampongs
• Bandung
• Indonesia

Acknowledgements

We would like to kindly thank the community participants from the kampongs for welcoming us in their communities and in Bandung and for their valuable contribution to the project. We also want to thank the team of surveyors and colleagues at ITB, and Inisiatif: Sangkara Astabidasa, Almira Amalia, Yunida Indira Cahyono, Elmira Azalea, Mahbub Maulaa, Nisa Zafirah and Rizky Aditia Budiman. We greatly value their essential help and support in completing research components through the duration of this long project.

Disclosure statement

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and publication of this article.

Note

¹Distros are small-scale, independent distribution outlets that sell a variety of music, fashion and design products related to the contemporary cultural movements of Bandung (Fahmi, Koster, and van Dijk 2016; Kim 2017).

Data availability statement

The interview data supporting the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The interview data are not publicly available due to their containing information that could compromise the privacy of research participants.

The survey data supporting the findings of this study is available under https://doi.org/10.17026/dans-z6s-47js.

Additional information

Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge funding from NWO-WOTRO through the ‘Informal Economies and Creative Industry strategies (INECIS) – Governance arrangements, socio-spatial dynamics, and informal economies in urban kampongs in Indonesia’ project under the grant number: W O7.5O.1853.